The southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe and needs a complete evacuation, Mayor Vadym Boychenko was quoted as saying by Reuters.
He added that about 160,000 civilians are still in the city. Twenty-six buses were waiting to evacuate some of them, but Russian troops did not agree to provide them with safe passage, he said.
“The Russian Federation is playing with us. We are in the hands of the occupiers,” Boychenko said. Russia denies the attack on civilians and accuses Ukraine of repeatedly failing to agree on safe corridors for trapped civilians.
Mariupol is considered one of the most strategically important cities for Russian troops to build a bridge between Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, and two separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has stated that it does not plan to try to create humanitarian corridors anywhere in the country today, fearing an attack by Russia.
“Our intelligence reports possible” provocations “by the occupiers along the humanitarian corridors. Thus, for reasons of public security, we will not open humanitarian corridors today,” said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.